Traditional Japanese tattoos are not only an art form, but an artistic code embedded with the unique cultural and spiritual values of Japan. Horimono, as we experience it today, reached its full realization in the cultural quarantine of the Tokugawa era, as an expression of the aesthetic and philosophical values of the Japanese people. In this sense, horimono is distinctly Japanese in its form and process.

In the modern era, Japanese tattooing (ironically taboo in its home culture) has spread to the West. Now, horimono is no longer limited to Japanese people or the merchant class or the Edo period. This universality has many virtues and suggests that the Japanese tattooing tradition will persist for generations to come. The reality of a cultural idiom taking root outside of its homeland is part of human history. We see this in the way that Indian Buddhism took root in Tibet, China, and Japan, and how Tibetan Buddhism is, in turn, being preserved in India amidst the Chinese cultural revolution.

The question is whether something as culturally-defined as tattooing can be rightly experienced by foreign cultures. The answer depends on various factors. For one, traditional Japanese tattoo art has influenced the Western tattoo tradition significantly, and many artists tattoo these art forms within a Western tradition. Meanwhile, artists who practice in the traditional Japanese manner go through extensive training in a lineage context, and are thus few and far between. Those who find these rare practitioners and are thus privileged to experience horimono for should fully invest themselves in the process.

I am reminded of jazz guitarist, Pat Martino, when he said that jazz music was a unique expression of a culture, of a time, a place, a vibe. In an interview with All About Jazz, Martino said:

AAJ: What's your opinion of the music industry and the place of jazz within it?

PM: All of this, I think, goes to the ultimate, which is going to be the result of how it's going to be accepted, how much it's going to be enjoyed as a good product that is historically available from that time forward. I think that the educational system, conservatories and music institutions, and all of the youngsters that are there at this particular time, with definition and with determination about what they're really promoting into their futures, the one thing that is missing is missing in our culture itself.

The study of jazz at this point is a very difficult study of something that is almost impossible to be able to provide authenticity. And that leads back to the fact that the culture doesn't exist anymore. It's difficult to walk into a jazz club the way you did in the '60s, with people who were there surrounding the intimacy of the environment where jazz was really explosively taking place. And that included so many things that this culture is lacking. And that took place with DJs who are now record company owners; a good example is Joel Dorn over at 32Jazz. I remember when Joel had a radio show in Philadelphia and at that time was the first time that I heard The Montgomery Brothers. That's when I was a 14 year old boy, and that's what stimulated me.

The music business has changed tremendously. Fashion has changed tremendously. Everything has changed in our culture. Coming back to jazz, I think there is a lack of authenticity in terms of its study at this point in time. It's being analyzed, it's the equivalent of step time versus real time. I think both of them are necessary, but at some point hopefully in the future the culture will re-organize itself. Then and only then will jazz participate in a living form, as it did earlier.

Martino saw his music as an “audio photograph” and jazz itself as a “living form” that took shape in the present moment of the total cultural environment. Martino’s reflection is a sentiment that, I think, all craftspersons can relate to. When I think of acupuncture, for example, I remember the words of J.R. Worsley that acupuncture is a “way of life”. I believe traditional Japanese tattoo artists would also agree that horimono is not just a combination of artistic knowledge and technical mastery, but the living form of a cultural way of life. Does this mean the past is the past and cannot be realized in the present? Has the cultural context of Japanese tattooing disappeared just as much as it has for jazz? Martino seems to believe that there is hope for the future of jazz, if “culture will re-organize itself”.

Japanese tattoos are like jazz music in this sense, but in another sense, they endure the changes of time better than music. Jazz music itself is vast, with different forms and variations. Every artist is different and so is their style. Martino’s hard bop organ trio format is unlikely to be replicated or even if it is, we have to wonder how the idioms of the 60s and 70s would feel when attempted today. Even more interesting is the fact of Martino, as an Italian-American, playing what was originally African-American music. If we continue the comparison to Japanese tattooing, then we can see how the living form of art is culturally specific but fundamentally universal. This is why artistic forms can be appreciated and realized cross-culturally, a reality that seems especially facilitated by today’s global connectedness. I would like to see humanity leverage the advantages of modernity to preserve these great traditions, lest we fall into the abyss of a post-modern vacuum.

Despite the cross-cultural nature of art, we have to appreciate how traditional Japanese tattooing is distinctly and fundamentally Japanese. This is a learning experience for some more than others, but for all of us in various ways. We live in an era where the erasure of cultural identity is commonplace and where the world, as a whole, has become essentially Western. This is not right or wrong, but it should beckon us to understand our past, what our present values should be, and what kind of future belongs to us. This is where tattooing, as a cultural process, plays an important role in society.

References
1. Pat Martino--The Continuous Pulsation of the Now
2. Here and Now!: The Autobiography of Pat Martino

Japanese tattoos are an expression of the cultural consciousness of the Edo period. Intrinsic to the Edo period is the aesthetic philosophy of iki, defined by Shozo as a ethnic mode of consciousness unique to the Japanese people. The aesthetic of iki resists all attempts to define it. Although it can be discussed philosophically, iki rightly belongs to the realm of subjective experience that I would describe as a state of consciousness. In order to understand tattoos, we have to understand them as a realization of iki, and thus as a state of consciousness. While difficult to conceptualize, the immediacy of this truth becomes clear only through the experience of being tattooed in the traditional manner.

If we realize tattooing as a state of consciousness (or mode of being), then it no longer exists purely in the realm of the visible or even in the objective realm at all. The fact that this is true even while tattoos adorn the physical body is among the playful paradoxes that are intrinsic to this state of consciousness. Although I am not Japanese and have no direct experience of Japanese culture, I believe that the state of iki can be understood (to some degree) in universal terms. In particular, I propose that iki is distinctly and thoroughly Japanese and a state of consciousness that transcends the limits of culture and time.

The felt sense of opposition is fundamental to the state of iki. Opposites in play is the nature of harmony and tension. In becoming conscious of natural oppositions, we become conscious of natural form and its mysterious dynamic. Harmony and tension are both born from the root of opposites. The tension between opposites engenders the spark of transformation. The harmony between opposites is the temporary union of forms. In some sense, iki is the awareness of the constant within change as well as the fact that change itself appears to be the only constant.

Tattoos are a celebration of this understanding, carved on the foundation of the artistic tradition of woodblock prints. If tattoos are a state of consciousness, then they transcend the sense of effort and goal. The reality of being tattooed is more like a dream, a visceral vision of familiar forms floating in the endless. Hand-carved tattoos seem to have no end with the conclusion of the experience being in some sense its very antithesis. In this way, Japanese tattoos embody the early Daoist concept of “wu-wei”, often translation as “non-action”, but more accurately “acting without acting”.

Tattoos are part of life yet they exist outside of life as a state of consciousness, just as the dreams of night remain otherworldly in comparison to waking consciousness. Therefore, the state of consciousness becomes the context of existence. The process of being tattooed becomes something like a dream because it has a visible expression while existing outside of the usual context of consciousness.

Japanese tattoos require time and therefore become a recurring aspect of life for those who choose it. Rather than getting tattooed sporadically, I prefer to establish a pattern of frequency that becomes a rhythm. In this rhythm, my life starts to unfold in a wider context, the context that tattooing provides. Life is seen in cycles between tattooing. Thus, the ritualization of tattoos creates a perspectival shift that has no analog. In social terms, this can be seen in the way tattoos are associated with the “underground”, a context removed from daily life. But this association is largely political in nature and misses the deeper meaning of tattoos as a process that includes culture but also transcends it.

Tattooing ultimately points back to itself. It is something done for its own sake and its meaning is simply its own existence. Tattoing re-defines the nature of time. For one, hand-carved tattoos take significantly longer, evidence that it is conceived entirely beyond modern ideas of “progress”. Experientially, tattooing has no true end. I have sometimes thought that I will complete my bodysuit––if I live long enough! At the same time, to receive Japanese tattoos is to experience a culture and tradition, from another time and place. Traditional Japanese tattoos champion tradition amidst modernity. The experience is nearly anachronistic––an analog sensation in an electric world, the past in the present.

Tattoing in this manner has a real function in culture and society. Tattoos can be viewed as an “excess” in the sense of being unnecessary but desired by some. Tattoos belong to the sacred, not the mundane. Tattooing is ideally a place set-apart from the world, from all the familiarities of life. Thus, tattooing becomes a sacred ritual, a refuge from the world, a palace of toil.

REFERENCE
1. The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shūzō

I.               

Ukiyo 浮世 is often translated as “floating world”. What is a floating world? Even in English, the phrase evokes multiple meanings. A dream, a heavenly place, an illusory condition, a state of intoxication, an attitude of detachment, the spiritual veil of conditional existence (or māya), the truth of impermanence, the understanding of how the passing of time bestows value upon the present. Ukiyo is the fleeting nature of existence and the flourishing culture of Edo-period Japan. Ukiyo is a worldview that engenders a way of being, culturally expressed and collectively known.

The word ukiyo holds within it a dual sensitivity––the inevitability of death and the value of living in the present moment. The practice of tattooing has an ancient history in Japan, roughly originating during the Jomon or Paleolithic eras around 10,000 BCE. The indigenous people of northern Japan, known as Ainu, are known for the tattooing tradition. However, it was not until the Edo period that Japanese tattooing developed the artistic forms that characterize it today.

Japanese tattoos evolved in the context of the defining artistic genre of the Edo period, known as ukiyo-e 浮世絵, commonly translated as “pictures of the floating world”. Woodblock prints became the characteristic medium of ukiyo-e art. In fact, both woodblock carvers and tattoo artists were known by the title horishi 彫り師––hori comes from the verb horu, meaning “to carve”. The process of making woodblock prints requires a knife and other tools to carve the artistic design onto the surface of a wooden block––an obvious analog to the “carving” of tattoo designs into the surface of the skin. The process of carving tattoos into the skin is known as tebori 手彫り, meaning “to carve by hand”. This hand-carving was accomplished with a hand-made bamboo tool, slender in shape, with a group of needles fashioned to the end. Held in the hand of the horishi, this tool is carefully articulated in angle in an audible rhythm reminiscent of analog clocks. The process requires nothing short of mastery to execute and experientially transmits a time and place, seemingly passed, but mysteriously present.

II.              

 Tattoos are a meditation on permanence and impermanence. The embedding of ink into the skin is permanent while the living canvas of the body is itself impermanent. A tattoo is permanent in the sense of lasting a lifetime, but as art, it bears a much shorter lifespan than works made upon non-living mediums. Today, we can view the original works of artists from centuries past. Perhaps these great works of art have achieved the timeless. Yet, despite their endurance, a work of art remains inherently fragile. A special effort is required to protect and preserve something of value. Even “permanent” tattoos can fade from exposure to sunlight over time and certainly do not last beyond the lifespan of the individual.[1] This makes each tattooed person the unique bearer of an art-form, for as long as they live.

What may be so captivating about tattoo art is its subjectivity and ability to reflect change. Not everyone is an artist, and even those drawn to deep appreciation of art, often find themselves forever objective to the subject they so admire. When viewed through the lens of separation, art becomes unattainable, and its value limited to awe and wonder. The great works of art and the profundity they engender in the viewer is the evidence of a different process: a subjective process in which the viewer participates in the art, is engulfed within the art, is encompassed within its affect.

Tattooing takes the subjective process to its visceral and even violent depths. Tattoing takes the artistic process to its subjective and visceral depths. With tattoo, the purveyor of art is not viewing the art but becoming the art. Tattooing is a process, not an endpoint. Tattooing is a metaphor for life, with its temporary trials and lasting victories. We could hang a beautiful painting in our home. We could also wear a shirt featuring our favorite artwork. But it is another form of artistic appreciation and participation to wear art on the canvas of the skin, permanently! It is far from the ease of pleasantry that objective admiration so readily attains and is instead intimate with the depths of transformation that true art initiates.

There is no easy way to realize tattoo art. It requires enduring pain, healing wounds, the shocks of permanent body modification, and the joys of freshly inked art settled in the skin. Tattoos challenge us to become comfortable in our own skin, first and foremost. Tattoos call us to be who we are without regret, without shame, and even without a word. Tattoos make visible the invisible, teaching us the power in expression. Thus, tattoos were given spiritual value in indigenous cultures and worn in these contexts as empowered talismans.When our life-force is strengthened and rooted in the body, then it no longer wanders and becomes vulnerable to negative influences (within and without). Tattooing is certainly not the only way to realize these virtues and not everyone who is getting tattooed relates to it this way, but it is in my view, the highest and deepest purpose of tattoos and even all art.[2]

For those who choose to wear a full bodysuit of tattoos in the traditional Japanese style, there are large portions of the tattoo (backpiece for example) that are not even visible to the wearer. I have heard people ask, why are you getting tattooed where you will not be able to see it? It is a good question, but a proper answer requires an exploration of the meaning and purpose of tattooing. People do not wear tattoos to view them like a piece of art on a wall. Tattooing has subjective meaning, it is a process even more than it is a finished thing. Wearing art is empowering, even if you cannot see it all the time. You can feel it and it is fused with you, both through the process of receiving it and through its permanence in the skin. Tattoos become a part of you and you become part of the tattoo. The skin is our largest “organ” and the means by which we receive the world and protect ourselves against its pathogenic influences. Tattoos transform the barrier, the interface of our participation in existence.

Ultimately, tattooing is difficult to explain to the non-tattooed. Tattoos are a form of transcendental realism––an invocation of Truth, Reality, and Beauty. There are those of us who feel an inexplicable attraction to getting inked, an ambition that even becomes an urge. This desire is just as paradoxical as tattoos themselves. Yet, the fleeting pain of tattoos transform into a lasting pleasure. Their relative permanence fades into absolute impermanence, while the world floats above the clouds. Truly, the paradoxes of tattoos are only adequately answered under the penetrating gaze of the needle itself.

Notes
[1] Exceptions to this include photographic and physical records. See the extensive photographic portfolio of Takagi Akimitsu in The Tattoo Writer by Pascal Bagot. Physical records exist in the preservation of tattooed skin, post-mortem. These “pelts” have been collected in museums. In the early-to-mid 20th century, Dr. Fukushi Masaichi amassed a collection of such pelts, preserving them carefully, in a private collection. A public collection can be found in the Bunshin Tattoo Museum, founded by tattoo master Horiyoshi III in Yokohama, Japan.

[2] A present-day enactment of this principle is seen in the Edo Choyukai Group. Established in the last century, the Edo Choyukai is a group united by traditional Japanese tattoos, and who embark on a sacred pilgrimage once a year in honor of this.

I.

Tattooing is not a form of masochism. No one enjoys the painful sensations of getting tattooed, but most are willing to endure the temporary pain for sake of permanence.

The only way to endure pain is to find acceptance, to be fully present with it, and to surrender all resistance. While laying on the table getting tattooed, I felt something like the archetype of the Hanged Man. I was already in a passive physical state, apparently lying down, yet an immense process is unfolding within. If my mind wanders, it becomes more difficult to meet the needle. In this sense, tattooing is an opportunity to cultivate one’s energy, to focus one’s consciousness, and allow the body-mind to feel without limitation. It seems as if there is no alternative to the confrontation. Indeed, the only alternative is transcending the sense of opposition that is confrontation itself. Thus, the needle becomes the mysterious instrument of peace, line by line.

After this session, I began to understand why Tatsutoshi considers tattooing a collaborative process. It is not really about “getting tattooed” but being tattooed and participating in the process of transformation, breath by breath. I also have Tatsutoshi’s very gentle hand and deep focus. He is just as present with it as I am and we meet in the threshold of the skin. The artist and the client become one in this juncture that transcends dualities, the only evidence a flow of ink. Tatsutoshi’s very gentle hand and deep focus. He is just as present with it as I am and we meet in the threshold of the skin.

It is unfortunate that many fail to participate in the process of tattooing. The common tattoo shop atmosphere that I see today are people scrolling on their phones and/or wearing headphones while getting tattooed. These are among the means for “checking out” of the process. There is little to no connection with the artist, the client lost in a black hole of their own anti-experience. I can only say that there is so much more to experience and gain by checking in and being present with the process, as opposed to merely focusing on the end result.

Tattooing is not something I merely “tolerate” for ultimate aesthetic reasons. Tattooing itself is the aesthetic I am existing in. I no longer think about “having tattoos”. My only acquisition is an ephemera, lost in consciousness.

II.

Tattoos and acupuncture both requires the use of needles. It may be hard to believe, but tattoos and acupuncture have the potential to be relatively painless. Traditional Japanese artists use the tattoo machine for outline, but shade entirely with tebori. Machine work is quite painful while my experience of tebori has been rather painless. Needles are used for different purposes in tattooing and acupuncture, but the needles themselves are not dissimilar. The needles used for the traditional tebori method have an average thickness of 30mm, which is the standard needle gauge used in Chinese acupuncture. The use of very thin needles (0.12mm - 0.18mm) is the unique development of Japanese acupuncturists.

In the 17th century, the blind acupuncturist, Sugiyama, struggled to master the Chinese rotation technique of needle insertion. The story goes that Sugiyama was walking home one day when he fell, accidentally grasping a pine needle. In that moment, he conceived of needles being inserted with the use of a tube, allowing for quick and painless insertion. The guide tube also allowed for thinner needles to be used, since they could be comfortably and stably inserted through the guide tube. The “guide tube” is now used by most acupuncturists worldwide.

The parallels between tattooing and acupuncture go beyond the use of needles. Tattooing and acupuncture are process-oriented arts that necessity the conscious participation of the recipient. According to Kodo Fukushuma, a blind acupuncturist and one of the grandfathers of Japanese Meridian Therapy, it is impossible for an acupuncturist to tonify a patient’s energy when they have caused pain upon needle insertion. Fukushima believed the experience of pain caused the energy in the meridian to disperse to the surface.

Patients who are afraid of acupuncture needles (even after several treatments) tend to “anticipate” the needling event. They visibly contract even before the needle has been inserted. No matter how painless the needling is about to be, in such cases, the outcome of tonification has been forfeited. It is a simple law of physics that contraction is process of reduction. Therefore, my advice to “meet the needle” applies to people getting tattooed and patients receiving acupuncture. First, it is essential to have an acupuncturist you trust. If they practice a classical Japanese style, then they will be versed in painless insertion. If they are Chinese-style practitioners, then I can guarantee a stronger hand and more dispersing treatment effect. Some may call it pain and others may simply feel intense sensations from needling such as dullness, aching, fullness, tingling, and warmth. In order for needling to be effect, the patient needs to relax and meet the needle. The practitioner also must meet the needle by keeping their attention on the tip of the needle as it is inserted. In order to do this, the practitioner needs to cultivate an appropriate posture and keep their energy centered in the hara, and then they must needle from the hara. When the qi is thus stable and clear, the needle flows into the skin like ink. As it sinks, the arrival of qi will be felt as a most subtle sensation, as if an invisible hand had pulled the needle into itself. When this happens, the patient becomes quiet or takes a deep breath. Even if there are no outer signs, we can sense the efficacy of needling as an energetic event, even felt spatially in the room, and within our body.

The efficacy of acupuncture has much to do with the practitioner’s sensitivities, but this is not all that is at play. I propose that the patient plays an equal part. A patient who is also a participant and not merely a recipient will derive much greater benefit than a patient who simply expects a procedure to be performed. The latter are constantly disappointed, as their expectations exist in the isolation of their own minds, and drift ever farther from reality. For them, nothing works. Those who participate gain entrance to a world of being, experience, and richness that surrenders all outcomes. The present abundance becomes the elegance they are amidst.

In traditional Asian medicine, the timing of activities is a major factor in whether said activity results in benefit or harm. The origins of this belief are in the idea that all living beings are surrounded by a protective life-force that circulates in and via the skin surface. …

Read more

1. Mindset is everything. Schedule your tattoo appointment in advance and start preparing the week before you get tattooed. Cultivate a good night’s rest (7-8 hours) in th…

Read more